European Super League has continued to remain a prime discussion in football despite receiving heavy pushback from fans in the first instance.
The likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus have continued to push in favour of the breakaway league, which in turn, has been shunned by footballing organisations such as FIFA and UEFA.
In a constant legal fight with these organisations for a while now, ESL has received a major blow recently, as the Advocate General at the European Court of Justice has dished out an opinion, suggesting that FIFA or UEFA are well within their rights to ban clubs from participating in ESL.
Although the ruling is not binding, the EU court justice has been firm in indicating that UEFA or FIFA are not misusing their control in football by barring ESL clubs from participating in competitions such as the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.
“While the European Super League Company is free to create its own independent football competition outside of the UEFA and FIFA ecosystem, it cannot, in addition to creating that competition, continue to participate in football competitions organized by FIFA and UEFA without the prior authorization of these federations,” the opinion said (h/t MARCA).
This could serve as a major blow for clubs such as Barcelona and Real Madrid, who have been in unison in promoting and propagating the idea of ESL, which was reportedly being planned to start from the 2024/25 season onwards.
While these clubs are still within their rights to host a separate tournament, lack of turnout from European clubs, coupled with heavy sanctions from FIFA and UEFA makes this move way too risky.